Hitting late night theaters this Wednesday is the Spanish found footage horror flick, Atrocious. It is the feature film debut of writer/director Fernando Barreda Luna and the release from Bloody Disgusting Selects.
The premise of the movie is simple. The Quintanilla family goes out to take a vacation at their old country home in Sitges and five days later the family is found dead. 37 hours worth of footage, belonging to the eldest son and daughter, is discovered at the scene of the crime on August 4, 2010. One of the hobbies of the older brother Cristian (Cristian Valencia) and sister July is that they investigate urban legends and record everything with their two HD cameras. While on vacation they decide to investigate the legend of the girl in Garaff woods, a girl who apparently follows you/helps you when you get lost in the labyrinth (which is located next to their home). As you would expect, their curiosity eventually gets the best of them and strange and horrific things begin to happen as they uncover important details in their investigation. To know what happens at the end please reread the first sentence, and don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler.
After finishing the movie I was a bit disappointed. I won’t be the cheeky reviewer and say that the film was atrocious because I don’t think it was that bad. It may not have been good but it wasn’t as horrible as some people make it out to be. I think a lot of the disappointment comes from the expectations. [Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want details key to the plot] Before watching the film I had seen the trailer and read the plot and it made me think I was getting into some sort of Spanish version of Paranormal Activity. As the movie progressed I continued to think of it along those lines but by the end of the film, when the big reveal happens, it falls flat and doesn’t turn out to be anything you normally would have hoped for. Even though you could start to figure out that what’s been going on might not have been paranormal related, it was still a pretty disappointing way to end the movie.
[No more spoilers from here on out]
With that being said, I think Luna did a great job of building the suspense up. As I was watching the film and night began to fall I began to feel apprehensive, the film would grab hold, make you sweat a little and then would loosen its grip on you. This is where I think he truly succeeded because in the end you realize that the movie is only 75 minutes long and not much actually happens until the final 20 minutes.
What I also like, and this is a common trait with these found footage films, is that you are given the same exact information that Cristian and July get which helps avoid the whole plot hole dilemma. If the kids don’t get the information they are just ignorant and you get to partake in their ignorance which helps for curiosity purposes. It’s this aspect of the filmmaking process that I also enjoyed because then, at least for the kids, the revelation becomes that much more shocking. Unfortunately, it’s only really shocking for them, for us it’s a major letdown.
I feel like that acting in all these found footage movies is pretty much the same so I don’t feel the need to go into much detail about it. Instead, I’ll just say that it worked for the film. Wasn’t great, wasn’t awful.
Overall, while Atrocious may not be as bad as the title suggests, it isn’t that good and could have easily been cut into a 35 minute short. If you’re into Spanish horror I would just wait for this to hit VOD and give it a watch at home. The film has its moments and slowly moves you to the edge of your seat but when the finale hits and the credits begin to roll that’s when the film truly falters. But hey, if you have different expectations than I did going into it, maybe you’ll end up enjoying the film.
Rating: A found footage film better left undiscovered…or at least cut in half (4/10)
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